first week of volunteering at food lifeline: a smashing success

It’s been a rockin’ first week volunteering at Food Lifeline. I love the people I’m working with and the rotating cast of kind-hearted volunteers and court mandated community service characters that roll through the Shoreline warehouse.  I started the week inspecting and repacking grocery rescue produce.  In real people speak, that’s nearly expired donations from several local grocery retailers, including Fred Meyer, Whole Foods and Amazon.com.  Foodstuffs have ranged from chanterelle mushrooms and vegetable and dip combo platters to very ripe avocados and heirloom tomatoes.  Potatoes, apples, bagged lettuces and pre-cut fruit reign supreme, with the latter in past expiration abundance.  It’s humbling to play a part in feeding so many needy Western Washington families and inspiring to see the volume of food that is processed at Food Lifeline with such meticulous care.

Parker Staffing Services and Tiffany of Carbzilla joined the food-packing festivities on Tuesday; Tiffany even returned again on Thursday.  Later in the week, I was “promoted” to processing dairy and have even been entrusted to train a handful of new volunteers.  Physically, it’s been an exhausting week, moving and packing boxes ranging from 25-40 lbs., hauling, weighing and disposing of heavy compost bins, and working on my feet for several consecutive hours in a fast paced warehouse setting, but I absolutely love it. 

In other news, my beloved 1992 Nissan Maxima went to car heaven last weekend after one final road trip to Vancouver, B.C., so I was forced to learn how to navigate King County Metro.  Riding the bus is no big deal for most urbanites, but I am not well-versed in Seattle’s public transportation system and the prospect of taking the bus (including a - gasp! - transfer) instilled panic that I’ve never experienced in all my third world ground transportation travels. Go figure.  So as a freelancer who’s worked from home for the past 12 years, never had structure or a schedule to abide by and has limited public transportation experience, I am proud of myself for getting myself to Food Lifeline every day this week via bus and on time. Maybe I wore repeat outfits this week and showed up with wet hair, but volunteering really isn’t about looking pretty. It’s about productivity and all of the volunteers at Food Lifeline kick ass.  I am so happy that for December, I get to play some small part in Food Lifeline’s annual goal of delivering 24 million meals to hungry families in Western Washington. 

december project preview: food lifeline in shoreline, wa

December brings me home to Seattle to volunteer with Food Lifeline, a nonprofit food distribution agency working to provide nutritious food to hungry, low-income people in Western Washington state. It was my intention to finish up TGCP somewhere close to home to emphasize the importance of volunteering within your community. But the winter and holiday seasons seem to create additional volunteer needs in Seattle (and most urban environs, I would guess), so I decided to move up my local service project in the grandmaster schedule.

That said, I am using this opportunity to encourage people within the Seattle area community to get out and volunteer during the holiday season. Already, I have 19 people signed on to come volunteer with me at Food Lifeline over the month of December, and it’s my goal to at least double that number. Who am I kidding? I’m an overachiever, so what I really mean is that I’d like to quadruple that number. Wait! Let’s make it an even 100 people.

I recently learned that some companies, like Parker Staffing Services, offer their employees paid time off per quarter to volunteer. How cool is that? (Parker Staffing Service has 10 – yes, 10! – employees joining the food distribution festivities.) If you’re a 9-to-5er, ask your boss if your company offers similar perks – you never know.

Here are the details:
I plan on volunteering in Food Lifeline’s Product Recovery Center (PRC), Monday – Friday afternoons. PRC is open Mon-Fri 8:30-4:30 and needs volunteers help sort, inspect, and repack foods that have been donated by local grocery stores. It is a physical job that requires you to stand on a concrete warehouse floor for long periods, and you will need to be able to safely lift 30-40 pounds. PRC volunteers need to be age 16 or older. They ask that volunteers make a minimum 2 hour per visit commitment, most stay for 3-4 hours, and some make a full 6-8 hour day out of their time. PRC’s morning volunteer session runs from 8:30-12:00, and afternoon session run from 12:30-4:30. Volunteers can commit to a one-time volunteer session, or you can volunteer on a few specific dates, or you can commit to help once per week.

If this opportunity doesn’t sound like your thing, that’s okay, because Food Lifeline has lots and lots of other volunteer needs. And…if you don’t feel like volunteering with Food Lifeline, that’s okay too. The bottom line is: all I want for Christmas (let’s pretend for a second that I believed in the baby Jesus) is for you to get out there and do something nice to give back to your community. Easy peasey, right? Big change doesn’t require a hero’s effort. Just a few hours of kindness can provide comfort and make you a hero to someone else -- especially during the holidays.

To register to volunteer at Food Lifeline:
Please send an email to Food Lifeline’s Volunteer Coordinator, Karen Chernotsky, karenc@fll.org and state what date(s) and time you are available to help.

Please and thank you in advance for your consideration. Seriously, gimme two hours of your time and I pinky swear promise we’ll have a blast. That’s the best thing about volunteering – it feels good.